


The World's a Mess (It's in my kiss)

by ninhursag



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Bittersweet, Drugs, Dubious Consent, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-01-01
Updated: 2001-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-06 13:54:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. The saga of Viggo and Orlando, sound track by Exene Cervenka.</p><p>This is not a love story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World's a Mess (It's in my kiss)

**Author's Note:**

> Written circa 2001. Take it as you will.

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[lotrps](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/lotrps), [rps](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/rps)  
  
---|---  
  
The World's a Mess (It's in My Kiss)

 

When he came to see Exene for the first time since he'd gotten back from New Zealand he really looked at her. He'd been lonely when he pulled up into her driveway, missing the closeness of the filming, missing other things he couldn't have named and all he wanted was the familiar, so of course he had really looked at her, the way he had back when he still needed her. It had been years since he'd done that, since he'd seen her as more than a voice and a pair of hands that took care of Henry when he wasn't doing it. The mother of his son. It was the sheer weight of her that made him blink.

She had gotten fat on him. Fat and old, her skin ruined and stretched. Only her eyes held any spark of the beautiful madness that he had once adored. It was a mistake to look into her eyes.

"Jesus Christ," he said before he could stop it. "Look at you." He knew the horror had bled into his voice and waited to see her react.

The smile was the same, twisted and impish. Even coming from that waste of a body it made him shift against a sudden hardness in his pants. It had been a while... and that smile. "I look like an old fucking drug casualty hag. I have for years, Viggo. It was... nice of you not to notice before."

"No!" he said quickly, his mind suddenly fixated on escaping this house. This woman. Before he embarrassed himself any further. "You look great, you know. You look like you could still kick ass on stage."

"Lying fuck," she said lightly. She was pleased though, he could tell. He decided he could stay a little longer. "I can always kick your ass on stage. The day I don't is the day they burn me and scatter the ashes."

"So. I came to ask you-- are you, uh, going to come to the premier?" he asked, surprising himself. He hadn't come to ask her any such thing. He hadn't spoken to her about anything but Henry in so long he couldn't remember the last time. He couldn't even remember why he'd come, really.

"Premier?" She blinked as if in confusion.

"You know Lord of the Rings? My movie." He wondered if she was deliberately making him sweat. It wasn't like she didn't know he's been in New Zealand for months.

"Well. I couldn't not know. Henry's all wound up about it. He tried to make me read the book. Interesting prose. Pretty. Not really my speed." She shrugged.

"Well it's a little slow going, I guess. But will you come?"  
She shook her head. Frown lines creased her cheeks. "I don't know. You've never asked me before."

"I want you there. You should bring Henry. Bring... bring your boyfriend. It will be nice. It could be nice."

"Could be a fucking nightmare." She laughed out loud in that rough way she had. "What is it you want, Viggo?"

"I don't know. I miss—" He muttered something helpless under his breath.  
He couldn't think suddenly, time pushed up against his mind and her laugh and her smile and her eyes were just the same. Too much time for anything and did the only thing he could think do. He reached out and pulled her to him. Kissed her, hard and hurting.

Her soft, dry body squirmed in his grip as she tried to push him away. He swallowed her protests with his mouth. She tasted of tobacco and papery decay.  
"Don't," she hissed when she managed to pull out of his sucking kisses. "Don't."

Viggo gasped and stared at her for what seemed like hours as his pulse thudded at a quick tempo inside his ears.

He turned and fled her house as though something too terrible to put into words was breathing hot fire onto the back of his neck. Like a Balrog, he thought and the thought almost amused him. He got into his car and drove, annihilating the speed limit. Just short of the speed where he'd have just been asking for a ticket.

When he got home the Balrog was still chasing him. Of course it was. He dug restlessly and futilely for something to beat it back with.

He pulled out a record, old and dusty, from the bottom of a cabinet that held mostly CDs. He brushed off his equally dusty turntable and watched as the needle dropped. Lay down on the couch, shuddering, his skin painfully tight, eyes painfully dry. The music started. Her music. Her band, X. Crackled electric.

Exene's voice. Exene's wild, mad, young, young, young anger poured out of the speakers in a cadence too fast to dance to. His fingers shook as he unbuttoned his jeans and extracted himself from his boxers.

"We're desperate! Get used to it!" Exene howled, and he rubbed at himself in time to her voice. The balrog had caught up and sat on his chest regarding him in his half-clothed desperation. He imagined its hot, bitter breath burning him alive. Squeezed his eyes shut tightly enough to erase the image.

He brought himself off with more harshness than he'd felt from any lover but her. Since her. And he came so quickly, before the song ended. "Exene," he whispered to the coach cushion. "I'm desperate. I'm desperate too."

When he opened his eyes he was so uttterly alone he didn't know what to do but sleep. The Balrog chased him in his nightmares.

***

He couldn't make Exene reside anywhere near the back of his mind where she's lived for years. Couldn't do it for weeks after that. By the time of the premier though, he had it under control. He would have had it under control.  
Except there was Orlando.

Because Orlando came to the premier coked up out of his mind. Viggo spotted it instantly, like a banner over his head. He shone. He'd always been the most beautiful, but the drug lit him up from the inside and polished him to a bitter, manic sheen.

He saw Viggo staring and smiled, bright and brittle. Beckoned. And Viggo went to him.

"What do you think you're doing, Orlando?" he asked tightly.

Orlando shrugged. "You know, little of this, little of that."

"You know what I mean. You're practically flying."

"Eh? S'it obvious? A kindly little thing, used to be in make-up, met up with her the other day. She hooked me up."

"Can I ask why you had to do this? It's kind of a public place to be high."

"I had to. Kept falling asleep. Need to do more interviews and all, ya know? Look good, look clever. Can't sleep." Orlando glanced down at his watch,

"Can't sleep for at least eight more hours." Orlando looked up and smiled again. "You look tired, old man. I can hook you up if you want."

Viggo smiled back tightly. It was true was the damnable part. Orlando wasn't allowed to sleep, not when he had to be awake and witty and on top of the world. He wouldn't be the first or the last to want the chemical push to make it happen for him. "That's okay. We old men are allowed to look a little tired."

Orlando looked him over as if he had suddenly come into focus. He smiled, like he could taste something sharp and creamy. His skin seemed to practically glow with bliss. And then he said it. "Hey, Viggo. I like you, you know. I mean, a lot. Always did."

"I like you too, Orlando." And he did. Except that look he was getting had suddenly become predatory. And Orlando was looking too beautiful to be human. And Orlando knew that Viggo wasn't afraid to fuck around with either gender.   
And Orlando was still talking. And Viggo was tired of being alone. "I won't... I won't let you be tired. If you come see me after the show—"

"Are you hitting on me?" he asked. He suddenly didn't want to play games. He just wanted this slender, glowing creature. Youth and beauty, wealth and glamour, the opposite of her.

"Looks like it, doesn't it?" Orlando brushed his hand over Viggo's in a way that was calculated to look accidental to anyone watching. It sent a shock straight to Viggo's groin.

"And here I thought I was an old man to you," he whispered.

"Yeah, well maybe I need a daddy. Ever thought of that?"

"Maybe." He grinned.

"So I'll see you at mine then, after the show?"

"Didn't you want to sleep?" He teased. Suddenly feeling as good as if he were the one with chemical assistance.

"Ha ha ha, very funny."

The rest of the night passed in a blur.  
***

He'd noticed Orlando before, of course he had. But during those first few months in New Zealand the boy had been far too caught up in the drama of a dissolving relationship with his girlfriend to be a safe bet for more than cheap sex. At his age he was a more than a little tired of cheap sex. Except today when he decided any sex, especially with a friend, was better than his own hand, his records, his loneliness.

He hadn't counted on what he'd see when he let himself into Orlando's apartment that night, that it would be the last thing to make anything better.  
It wasn't Orlando's fault, maybe it was Viggo's, maybe no one's. No one's fault that the first time with Orlando had nothing to do with the man himself. Because Orlando was sitting in his bathroom where he had decided to bring himself down from the coke jitters with a pipe of heroin and because it had been so long since Viggo had smelled the burning acrid stink of it. Smell was the oldest part of the brain. It was memory. Smell was pleasure, this smell was pleasure and Exene.

So it wasn't about Orlando at all. From that moment on it was all about the heroin languor Viggo could imagine he smelled from his every pore. Orlando's eyelids tasted like velvet and shuddered like trapped birds when Viggo kissed them. His body lolled against the pillows, as boneless as a rag doll.  
He should of course have used his experience, his knowledge, should have yelled, and should have but a stop to it. But all he could feel was wanting.  
Orlando's smile was lazy and slow, like a man wandering through a dream to sweet grasp and too hazy to pull away from. Viggo touched his mouth, marveling at the heat of it.

"Viggo," he whispered, in a throaty BBC kind of voice. Like satin and gravel. "Viggo, it doesn't hurt."

"What doesn't hurt?"

"Nothing. My back. Nothing. It always hurts, since I broke it. And now it doesn't." And that was when Viggo knew it was the first time for Orlando. He must have seen it done before, he'd handled it like a pro, but the wondering delight in that freedom from pain. That was full of newness.

"Who sold it to you, Orlando?" Conscience stirred lazily inside him, making him ask. Orlando hadn't known. He wasn't a junkie yet. He wasn't Exene.

"What?" Orlando murmured blearily in that beautiful voice.

"The heroin. Who sold it to you?"

"I don't remember. D'you want some then? Come here and give us a kiss. I'll give it to you." Red, red whispering mouth against his. Harshness of beard stubble and the taste of unmixed alcohol buried so deep inside the hot mouth he had to search out with his tongue. He sucked on Orlando's mouth as though he could pull the high out and steal it for his own.

"Orlando—"

"Shhh... I know. I do know. But not now, yeah? Now doesn't matter. It doesn't hurt," the wonder in that voice made Viggo's breath catch all over again. How much did it hurt normally? How much pain was Orlando Bloom actually in?

"Who, Orlando? Who sold it to you?"

"A little bird. Pretty Bird. With long, long black hair. She didn't sell it neither. Gave it. Lovely Bird. That's because I'm an actor. A pretty actor."   
Viggo sighed and squeezed his eyes shut, held his lips tight. Didn't say anything. Orlando wasn't listening to him anyway.

"Brilliantly pretty," he continued. "That's why you like me. Come and give us another kiss." Helplessly enthralled, Viggo did. Orlando's lazy tongue licked delicately at the curve of his lips until they parted and steady, languid hands played down the muscles of his back. His mouth moved up, tongue sliding against the curve of an ear, before he began to whisper again. "Do you want some, Viggo? Because I've none left. The only way you can have it is body fluid."

And then conscience was forgotten and all Viggo could remember was the wanting. Wanting the grace, and the slender limbs, with all that olive skin, stretched over perfect bone. Wanting what was pounding underneath it, in those half visible blue veins.

Viggo growled helplessly and allowed himself to be pushed down by Orlando's slender body. The heat of him like a living electric blanket, curled around him, in his every crevice. Orlando licked him all over, grinning at his hairiness, pleased with his muscle.

Anything would have pleased Orlando that night because of the drug. Though Viggo was surprised that he was so hard, in spite of it. It figured that Orlando of all people he'd known would be one of the ones able to get it up on heroin.

And he did, and he let it press against Viggo's hands and be coated with lube, a warm, velvety, pulsing thing. Let it be sheathed inside Viggo's more than willing body, with small moans and gasps of encouragement

"Everything," he whispered, "So tight. Viggo. So good. Wanna die like this."

It took a long time, felt like it lasted forever as Orlando struggled past his high to reach orgasm. They were reduced to a gasping, whimpering two-fleshed thing, covered in needy skin and only touch mattered. When Orlando came inside him Viggo smiled as traces of the drug entered his bloodstream. So long. It had been so long since he'd felt it like this, it had been since the name on his lips was Exene's.

When he came that first time with Orlando the name on his lips was still Exene. But Orlando never heard it. That first night he dreamed of her wild hair and her voice like water over rock. His fingers threaded absently through Orlando's mohawk as he slept.   
***

He had to call Exene the next day to remind himself of why they weren't together anymore. Her tired rough voice was drained of all the old madness. She was a sober woman these days. They talked about Henry and that was okay. She didn't hold the kiss against him.

After the phone call he spent the rest of the morning holding the back of Orlando's head as the contents of his stomach spewed into the toilet. It was very cathartic, he decided.

"You can't do this anymore," Viggo said quietly, during a lull in the vomiting.

Orlando's overheated cheek was pressed against the cool bathroom tile and he moaned helplessly. "Believe me, don't wanna… keeps coming out anyway."

"I mean the junk, Orlando. It's not like the cocaine," he continued, knowing he was lecturing not knowing how to say it better. "It will kill you if you let it."

"Didn't inject it or nothing," he protested, semi-coherently.

That was true. That was something. "I just meant, I'm getting old for dealing with this kind of shit."

"S'not what you said the other night. You wanted it. Everybody knows you go for the junkies." And then the spasms ripped through his stomach again and he clutched the toilet bowl, what Viggo might have wanted forgotten as he emptied the bile from his stomach.

Viggo went to get him some water and stayed with him silently. He wondered which everyone knew that and why on earth they'd told Orlando. But there was nothing he could say. Because it had been true, he'd wanted it last night and not just for Orlando's body.

He was terrified that he still did.  
***

Orlando decided the whole thing was like Rimbaud and Verlaine. Maybe with a happier ending, more critical acclaim, no one getting shot. Better all around really, better drugs too. He'd had someone's homebrewed absinthe once and it hadn't been more than vaguely interesting. Like a weak version of mushrooms. But he'd always like the idea of being Rimbaud.

"Should we be writing poetry, do you think?" he asked, after Viggo settled at his kitchen table and fed him on dry tea and toast. It was nice to have an overnight guest who could find the toaster and the kettle on his own and could actually be bothered to make some for two, he decided.

"What?" Viggo looked at him blankly.

"Never mind," he said, and Viggo kept staring as though he'd lost his mind. Orlando considered explaining what he'd been thinking about, but decided it would hurt his throat more than it was worth to talk that much. He'd never gotten the idea that Viggo cared all that much about Bohemian French poets anyway. Though maybe he did, he was arty enough for it. Viggo sighed, muttered something under his breath and wandered off toward the bathroom.

Orlando choked down some of the toast even though it was painful to swallow and tried to decide what to do next. His stomach had definitely settled. That was bound to make it a better morning. He glanced out the window... better afternoon anyway. Viggo had put honey in the tea, which was good.

He decided that he liked the way Viggo watched him in the morning, like someone's grouchy old father figure, staring him down to make sure he ate.  
More grumbling noises and Viggo himself wandered back in. Orlando smiled at him in lieu of having anything to say. If he'd known all it took was some highly illegal substances, great sex, and a few hours of being violently ill to get a free nurse maid—

He laughed and said that out loud, earning an incredibly dirty look and a far too cheerless "Fuck you, Orlando," as a reward.

"You already did. Or the other way round, now that I think on it." The dirty look didn't ease at all so he added, "Look, would it make you feel better if I promised not to do it again? The last time I was this sick was when I polished off a bottle of fake champagne and generic vodka in one sitting."

"What, all by yourself?" Viggo's dad imitation eased off and he actually cracked a smile.

"Wouldn't you like to know? Oh, fuck off, I wasn't even sixteen at the time. It was a dare. It happens." Distracting Viggo from last night's bout of stupidity was much easier than he'd thought it would be. A few wisecracks and a vague promise to be good and all was forgiven. Orlando wondered if this was a sign of affection or merely of indifference to a casual sex partner and which would be worse.

Viggo's smile only widened and he shook his head. "I could tell you some stories, kid."

"You already did. Or you told 'em to Sean and he told 'em to me."

"Great. And here I thought I'd managed not to corrupt innocents and Sean undoes all my hard work behind my back."

"Don't be stupid, Viggo. I was never an innocent."

"I believe you, Orlando. Just like I trust you when you say you won't be smoking heroin anymore. Because I have faith in you and your legendary self-control."

Orlando sighed deeply and pressed his hand to his forehead. Faith, was it? Enough to give a fellow a headache was what it was. "You're a twat, you know that? Faith in me."

He hadn't meant to promise Viggo anything like that, not because he planned to try heroin again, just because he wanted his options open. But at the moment the promise slipped out he found he felt much better than he'd expected and even the remainder of the twisting nausea settled down. It had been good, the smack better than good, too good probably. He was glad of an excuse not to go there again, though he wouldn't admit it where anyone was listening. It had been different from anything he'd done before. Too much for him, probably.

If only Viggo knew how it had come to that in the first place. Not that he'd ever hear it from Orlando. That would be unspeakably embarrassing, to have the man find out about the torch he'd been carrying since New Zealand, to find out about the questions he'd asked to find out how to get to him. How to catch and hook him.

Viggo likes them tweaked, was what it came down to. He'd married some punk rocker girl that was deep in it and Orlando had seen for himself that it was the most off their heads ones who got to go him with him from the clubs. And Orlando could do that, but not while he was working, not while he was being watched. And between one thing and another he'd never had what he wanted during those months of filming and then it was over.

Even then he didn't think he'd intended to take it quite this far. But he hadn't lied to Viggo, it was that he'd been genuinely tired and the only way to keep going through the interviews and the fawning and the press nonsense was just to get himself wired all to hell on a combination of cheap meth and cocaine.

The heroin was supposed to have been a laugh, just having it in his possession giving him a shuddery thrill of its own, like the anticipating of going cliff diving. A girl he'd known vaguely had given it to him the morning of the premier along with a deep kiss he could still taste... and if it hadn't been for running into Viggo, well. He wasn't even sure he intended to actually take it, though he couldn't lie to himself, he probably would have done eventually.

He still remembered her hot breath in his ear. "It's good stuff. Very pure. You do know how to do it right? Because if you don't I can show you."

"I'll keep it in mind. Maybe I'll see you after this?" He offered. She smiled and promised to wait for him. He wondered how long she waited. Maybe she was still there.

In fact he did know how to do it. Not with a needle, he wasn't that stupid, not when there would be publicity shots later. But there had been a boy who'd dragged him into a back alley behind an overly trendy London club and shown him how to smoke it. In the end he hadn't had the nerve to try himself that time, he'd just watched the dawning bliss on the man's face and thought about it.

For the premier itself there'd been a few lines of coke than a few more, but not too much. His hands had been shaking uncontrollably and he knew he was due to crash no matter what and probably within hours. Teetering on the precipice was where he'd been and the fall was going to be enormously unpleasant.

He'd spent the first hour or so wandering around dreading that fall, in spite of knowing it would come faster for thinking about it. He tried to distract himself with meaningless hobbit conversations, but the unease haunted him. And then he'd seen Viggo and Viggo had seen him and the girl waiting for him after the show was immediately forgotten.

Because the wanting look in the man's face told Orlando that this was his big chance. And it would never do to mess up an opportunity like this one by crashing off of uppers, not when he had the perfect way to come down easy.

He knew he done it exactly right when he saw Viggo smell the heroin and the way his eyes went wide and wanting. But by that time it hardly mattered and there was only the pleasure.

And now there was tea, toast, and the satisfaction of knowing that he was being watched with a steady fixed gaze.

He glanced up at Viggo when the food was gone, pulling the best guileless expression he had from his repertoire. "And would sir care to have another go?"

He watched surprise chase mild confusion on Viggo's face until he managed to decipher what Orlando meant. Then the man smiled, slow and sensuous. "You mean now, Orlando?"

"Only if you can still get it up twice in twenty-four hours, old man." He laughed out loud, not caring in the least how raw his throat felt.

He got tackled for his trouble, and kissed thoroughly. Viggo's mouth tasted wet, with the mild bitterness of unsweetened tea. He pulled back as suddenly as he'd attacked. "Stand up, Orlando," Viggo said quietly.

Orlando shrugged and pulled himself to his feet. He wasn't as steady as he liked to be. But he felt clean and purged, and as off balance as something newborn. Viggo flicked his eyes up and down his body, as if inspecting a purchase he wasn't that sure of. Orlando tried out a lopsided grin, "I would think you'd already seen the goods in their entirety last night."

"Shut up, Orlando."

He raised an eyebrow at that, but shut up anyway. Waited to see what would happen next.

"Take off your pants." Orlando's dick looked up and took a definite interest in these proceedings, but he couldn't let it be that easy.

"Don't these things normally start with taking off the shirt?"

"You aren't wearing a shirt."

"Oh. Right." So he wasn't. Now that he thought about he wasn't wearing much in the way of clothing at all, just a pair of sweat pants.

"Shut up."

He shrugged and gave a mock salute, "Sir, yes sir." Before Viggo had a chance to reply he stuck a thumb in the waistband of his pants and began to peel them off. Slowly. He imagined a nice cheesy synthesizer background for himself, going thump-a-thump-a-thump-a-thump-a.

Viggo was staring; wolf eyes fixed on lengths of skin as they were revealed. Orlando could work with that. He eased the sweats all the way down and then kicked them off, hitting Viggo in the chest with them. Viggo laughed at that, the tension broken. Then he closed the distance between them and kissed him again. His tongue was about a size too large and ruthless, teasing lips and spreading them efficiently. Orlando moaned into his mouth, letting himself be speared by that tongue.

He found himself pushed up back against the table, then pulled up on it, as though he weighed nothing. He shivered as Viggo took a step back and stared again, staring at the picture he must present, legs spread and hanging precariously off the edge of the table, all worked up to hardness from a few kisses and some sultry words. The table legs weren't quite even on the ground and they rocked slightly underneath his weight. He squirmed under Viggo's predatory stare, waiting.

"Close your eyes, Orlando," he said far too softly.

Orlando closed his eyes. Waited, pulse drumming under his skin. When a hot wet tongue slid down the length of his cock the table moved beneath him and he clutched the edges of it in a white knuckle grip, hanging on for dear life.

**

When Viggo had gone Orlando wandered back into the bedroom and curled up in a patch of sunlight hovering on his bed. The roomed smelled of warmth and sex. He hugged a pillow to his stomach and slept the hard and dreamless sleep of the thoroughly satisfied. When he woke up again the room had darkened considerably. There was an impossibly annoying ringing sound somewhere in the room and he tried to identify it. It shut up when he picked up the telephone.

"Yeah?" he muttered, surprised at how raw his own voice still sounded.

"O.B.? S'that you?"

"Atti?" He instantly felt more awake. He hadn't spoken to his old roommate and best friend in weeks. Long enough to have forgotten just how much he missed him.

"Yeah, it's me."

"You sound horrible. What's the matter, worshipping the porcelain god were we?"

"Fuck off, you daft cunt."

"That would be a yes."

"That would in fact be a yes. Worth it though. Got me laid but good." The familiar laugh over the wire made him smile in return. It had definitely been too long. "And how are you? Still scaring all the little children?"

"Nah. It's not nearly as easy when your ugly mug isn't following me around."

"Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Yes, your ego really is as far disproportionate and in the inverse, no less, to the size of your dick as they say it is."

"Shut up, I'm serious."

"Ooooo, serious. What is it you want to know?"

He swallowed hard and then spit out the question. If he had to he could always claim he was just curious or he needed advice for a friend. "Atti, have you ever done heroin before?"

There was silence on the other end. He could picture the look on his friend's face, deciding what to say. Then, "Me? Well, once. A few times, actually. It was stupid. It was lovely, of course it was, I mean what would you expect? But I wouldn't try it if I were you. Not worth it in the end, is it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well it isn't the kind of drug you can just take and forget about. If you try it, you remember it. You can't help but think of what it would be like, just one more time."

That didn't sound good. Unfortunately it did sound like it was the truth. "Yeah, I suppose I can see it that way."

Atti sucked in an audible breath. Just like that, he knew. "It's too late to be warning you off it, isn't it?"

"Right. Sorry, mate."

"It's not me you should be apologizing to, O.B." There was a long pause and Orlando tried to think of something to say before Atti began again. "Listen, I know you. You aren't stupid. You have more self-control than you give yourself credit for. Don't you be stupid about this and it will turn out all right."

"Right. Great advice, not being stupid. Exactly the thing for me to do here," he said, knowing just how bitter he sounded.

"Well, what is it you want me to say? I'd love to able to undo whatever it is you've done, but I can't. We're not even on the shores of the same bloody ocean any longer. I can't exactly come over and kiss it better."

Orlando flushed at the anger and frustration in that voice. "I know. I'm sorry. You're right."

"Look, I- damn. What time is it?" He heard the sound of something being tossed around and knew Atti was trying to find a clock. "Fuck. Look, I'm really sorry. I've got to go. Got an audition in an hour and I have to get ready."

He sighed. "Sure. Of course you must go. Look, good luck. Never mind me, I'm just being an arse."

"Thanks." Another long pause. Orlando heard the sound of his friend breathing and began to count off the space between breaths. He suddenly and painfully and sincerely wished to be back in London for the first time since he'd moved to LA "You take care of yourself, O.B. You'll be all right. Call me if you need to."  
He nodded tightly and then remembered that there was no one to see him. "I will do."

"I mean it. You know I don't sleep. I know you don't. Call me. No more drastic incidents of drug taking when I'm not there to yell at you while you vomit. Understood?"

"Right. I understand. Say hello to the dog for me."

"Yeah... hey, I really hope whomever you fucked was worth it."

When they'd said their good-byes Atti hung up. Orlando held the phone to his ear until a woman's slightly mechanical voice instructed him that if he'd like to make a call he was to please hang up and dial again and if he needed help he was to dial his operator. He found that he actually thought long and hard about that last one.

 

***

 

Orlando's main problem, Viggo was finding out, was that he didn't want to sleep. There may have been some deep-seated psychological reasons for it, the muttered nightmares Orlando sometimes had when he did collapse suggested that there were. But if that was the case he never mentioned it and Viggo never felt like it was his place to ask. He sometimes thought of calling Elijah or someone else who might know if it had been a problem in New Zealand.

Probably not, he decided. There was no way that kind of gossip wouldn't have reached him when they were all living on top of each other the way they had been.   
It wouldn't have been that much of a problem, except nights like tonight would happen. Nights where an extremely hyper sounding Orlando called him from somewhere with an equally extremely loud bass beat at about one in the morning to scream in his ear that, "Me and two hobbits are down at the Whiskey and we thought you might like to come."

His reply was a sleep muffled noise.

"Really, it's a lot of fun. There's this girl who's offered to show me how she uses her tits for the knock out blow in mud wrestling matches."

"What?" He rubbed his ears helplessly, hoping he hadn't heard what he thought he had.

"That's what I said. But she said-"

"For god's sake, Orlando, do you have any idea of what time it is?"

"What do you mean? It isn't even midnight yet."

"It's one thirty."

"Close enough. Come on, you know you want to protect me from the girl with the plastic tits." Viggo muttered something vaguely obscene. "What was that, I can't hear you!"

"It's one fucking thirty, Orlando. The girl with the plastic tits can have you."

"Really? You sure?" There was something far too hopeful in that voice. In the background, Viggo could almost begin to make out a high pitched female giggle.

He could have sworn he heard Dom's voice saying something like, "Hey, Orlando, your girlfriend's here and she's brought shiny colored pills."

This was quickly followed by Orlando's, "Hey, Viggo, we've got pills!"

Viggo sighed and wondered if he'd ever been like that. Wondered why he bothered. Considered the benefits of dating people his own age. Sighed. "Stay. Just stay. I'll be there."

"If I do, do I get a biscuit?"

Viggo hung up the phone without another word and went to put on some clothes.

When he finally walked into the Whiskey, the first person he recognized was an incredibly green looking Dominic who waved at him shortly and then ran in the direction of the bathrooms. Viggo rubbed the back of his neck and sighed, pushing past the crowd until he spotted Orlando.

Who was talking animatedly in the corner with a girl Viggo didn't recognize. She was a Hollywood beauty, meaning she would really have had something if there were another ten or fifteen pounds on her bones. But she had long black hair with the luster of expensive treatment and large almond shaped eyes that caught the light.  
He frowned. Their dark elegant heads bent together in a pose that screamed intimacy. Orlando was illustrating some point with his hands and then ended his statement by brushing his fingers along the sharp bone of her cheek.

Elijah tapped on his shoulder from behind him, almost making him jump. "Hey, Viggo. You made it. Great." His blue eyes were wide and his pupils were blown up.

"Yeah. You kids having fun?"

"I'm doing good. But," he leaned over to Viggo and smirked nastily. "It looks like Orlando's making time with his dealer. I wonder if you get discounts for doing that?"

Viggo frowned and glanced back at the girl. Her hand was in Orlando's and she had her head thrown back in laughter over something he'd said. "How do you know she's his dealer?" he asked softly.

Elijah shrugged. "She's not anybody or anybody's girlfriend, but I keep seeing her everywhere. And I saw them standing together before the premier. She slipped him something and he was high as a kite that entire night."

"She could be just trying to get into his pants."

"Well, duh. But she's a dealer. I can call them." Elijah frowned at him in sudden consideration, "Hey, are you jealous?"

"What do you mean?" Viggo asked absently. "I've never met the girl."

"Sure you have. She was in make-up back in New Zealand. But that's not what I meant. You've been making an awful lot of time with Elf-boy there lately."

"Orlando's all right," he said shortly.

"He is. And you know he really likes you. Half the shit he pulls these days is just to get your attention."

Viggo smiled and shook his head at the boy. It wasn't as if Orlando had to work that hard to get his attention. A few inches of skin seemed to do it. "Jesus, Elijah, don't tell me you're matchmaking."

Elijah shrugged, but the tips of his ears turned a bright shade of red. "Okay, I won't tell you that. But I'll say this- that girl is nice enough. She probably even means well. She's also looking for someone famous to fuck and do drugs with. Needy, needy, and absolutely no limits. You know what I mean?"

"Nancy Spungeon."

"Exactly like that. Like in the movie, man." Elijah nodded, pleased. "So like I was saying, if you want him, you should go and get him before someone else does."

"Was that what you were saying?" He laughed for a second and Elijah gave him a little shove.

Viggo strode over to the pair in the corner without another word. The girl saw him first, and frowned almost too quickly to notice, before her face settled into the blankly friendly expression of a sales clerk or a prostitute on Hollywood Boulevard. Orlando turned to see what she was looking at and his face brightened into a wild, open grin. They had, Viggo noted, almost exactly the same coloring and bone structure. They could have been brother and sister.

The idea of seeing an expression like hers on Orlando's face made him physically ill.

He leaned possessively on Orlando's shoulder and smiled right at the girl, making sure to show all his teeth. "Introduce me to your friend," he ordered.

Orlando's skin was practically humming with tension, but his voice was pleasant and light. He wasn't upset; he'd just taken something. "Right. Sarah this guy is Viggo Mortenson. Followed me home one day, haven't been able to ditch him since. And Viggo, this is the lovely Sarah James. You should remember her actually. She was in make-up back in New Zealand."

"I'm sure he doesn't remember me," she said and smiled tentatively. "But it was a real privilege to have worked on that movie and all."

Viggo looked her over and found himself frowning. Her hands shook, slightly, but constantly and her pupils were blown up. Spidery track marks were visible from under the loose sleeves of her dress. He did, he realized after a pause, remember her from New Zealand, but not from make-up. Just as one of the furtive bodies he'd seen slipping out Orlando's trailer in the dark weeks after the break with his girlfriend had become final.

"If I didn't remember you before, Miss James, I certainly won't forget after meeting you here like this," he said quietly. He'd seen more than he could count exactly like her, mostly hanging around the men in X when he was with Exene, even slept with a few after the divorce. Pale, stick thin, ghost like things all of them, and mostly dead or ruined now. But it was true that he'd never forget this one, with a girl's version of Orlando's face.

"You're so sweet," she said. "Isn't he sweet, Orlando?"

Orlando raised a wicked looking eyebrow at him. "I think so, Sarah. Or, Miss James, if you'd rather." He laughed.

"Oi! Orlando!" Dom's voice echoed through the club noise. "C'mere!"

"Have to see what he wants," Orlando said. "Back in a sex- er- second, that is." He flushed, then shrugged it off. "You two keep this to remember me by." Before he had a chance to protest, Viggo found himself grabbed and kissed. Orlando's breath was chemical sweet. He sighed gently before he was released.

Orlando reached for Sarah next and her slender arms tightened around his shoulders as he swept her down in a florid romantic gesture. She came up red faced and laughing as Orlando skittered off toward the sound of Dom's voice.

"Well. He's certainly a handful," she said. She shook her head wildly, as if trying to clear some fog away.

"Yes." He nodded. She took if for encouragement and grabbed his hand like a friend. Her palms were cold and too dry.

"Viggo, I mean can I call you Viggo? You're a friend of Orlando's, right?" Before he could open his mouth, she continued, "Because I need to talk to someone who knows him. And I don't think Elijah likes me very much, do you? Dom likes me but he's not a friend, not really, not like you and Elijah are, do you know what I mean?"  
He nodded his head for her to continue, feeling the beginnings of a headache threaten him from the base of his neck.

"I have to know, what does he think of me? Because, I know he doesn't have a girlfriend, not since that bitch dumped him. And you know I think he's really great."

"He really hasn't mentioned you much to me," he said quietly, wondering what the fuck a person was supposed to say in this situation. He cursed Orlando for leaving him here without a clue how he should act in public. After all Orlando certainly hadn't made him any promises.

"He hasn't? Oh, but he talks about you all the time. He thinks you're great, I mean, really great. He must tell you everything."

"Well, he did say there was a girl from make-up who'd gotten him a little something to smoke before the premier." He watched her eyes widen and she gave a quick glance for anyone who might be in earshot. Then she smiled that bland professional smile again.

"You could say that. I know some people who can get... that kind of thing. If you're interested."

His headache was coming into bloom like some evil spore. He didn't think he could stand another second of this. "No, I don't think so," he said coldly.

"Oh." She took a step back, seeming to read his change in mood and then her smile came back, this time with the slightest edge. She took hold of his arm again and slid closer. "You know," she whispered, "There's no reason you and I couldn't get along. I can be real friendly to guys I like. It isn't a problem for me if the two of you like to... you know, share."

"I honestly don't know where you got the idea I share." He peeled her off, as gently as he could. Her smile had faded completely. She scratched absently at the marks on her arms.

"Fair enough. You know I offered. And I have things that make people come to me. He likes what I've got and don't you forget it." With that she turned and flounced off, leaving him standing there, wishing there was something he could do.

He found Orlando by the coatroom with Dom. They were sharing little white tablets between them. Orlando brightened when he saw him and stuck out his tongue, where a pill rested. "E?" he offered, open-mouthed.

Dom looked at the proceedings with a dreamy gaze that suggested he'd already had his. Viggo shrugged. Why bother refusing? The whole thing seemed to be taking more energy than he had.

He leaned over, pressing Orlando against the wall, and kissed him, taking the drug onto his own mouth with a whispering caress of his tongue and letting it rest there for a second. Dom giggled hysterically.

"Gonna go find Elijah," he said. "He hasn't been kissed yet. And neither have I. All right with you, mate?" Without waiting for an answer, he wandered off toward the dance floor.

Orlando didn't even blink. Viggo found himself captivated by the shining light pouring out of his brown, brown eyes. "I know the coat check girl. She's my friend. End friend. Round the bend friend," he said, through giggles. "I can't shut up. I'm sorry, I just can't. But I do know her."

"And she'll let us in the back room?" Viggo tried for a logical conclusion from that. Orlando's hands were tangled in his, the skin radiating warmth. That skin needed to be touched as much as possible. Now. Earlier. Before. He shook his head.

"Yes!" Orlando screamed, causing heads to turn, despite the music. "Sorry, too loud. But yes. We can. You know. In the backroom. Fuck, that is."

The coat check girl didn't even bat an eye. Viggo wondered what kind of things she normally saw and decided he wasn't interested in finding out. He resolved to give bigger tips when he came here again.

When the E kicked in he forgot the coat check girl, forgot Sarah fucking James, and forgot that they were in one of the most popular clubs in LA. All he remembered was the wonderful thudding of the music and the overwhelming desire to touch every inch of Orlando's body.

 

He woke up in his own bed the next morning, incredibly thirsty and with a deadly headache. Obviously he'd lost Orlando somewhere in the night since he was no where to be seen, despite the fact he remembered sharing a cab with him. He resisted the urge to pound something with his forehead to see if that would help.

Definitely too fucking old for this. Hell, he'd been too old for this on the day he was born.

Then he saw the note on his pillow in Orlando's distinctive scrawl and couldn't help a sudden smile. At least it promised to be one hell of a ride.

***

 

For Orlando cocaine makes the entire world happen in the present tense. It is the moment before a bungee jump, fossilized for hours on end.

When he wakes up in Viggo's house for what has to be the fifth time in a row Orlando can only think about a joke his mother had told him in a desperate attempt at bonding when he was a teenager and the very sight of her embarrassing. It started with two women at a bar talking.

One says, "Oh I don't mind when my man chases younger women."

"Really?" says the other. "That's remarkably tolerant."

The first one shrugs. "Not really. My man chases younger women. My dog chases cars. And if he catches one what will he do with it?"

He hadn't laughed then either.

But now he thinks about. If he catches one, what will he do with it? He wonders if Viggo feels the same way. Though there's no reason he should, he wasn't the one doing the chasing.

He remembers a story he'd read once, about homicidal lovers on the run. Cornered by the police on top of Blackpool tower. The boy tells the girl, "Thank God our love will never have to pass the test of time." Then he jumps off, a grenade in his hand.

His thoughts are so disjointed it takes him a few minutes to realize that this is the first time he's awakened in this bed not hung over. He can't remember how that happened, until it occurs to him that he has only been asleep for about an hour and perhaps he is still high. Viggo is asleep beside him, curled up into himself in a gesture almost endearingly self-protective. Viggo smiles in his sleep and reaches for the warm spot on the bed where Orlando had lain a few seconds ago.

And this is the exact moment that Orlando panics.

He panics productively of course, because despite anything anyone has said about him, he's a very productive person. Scattered brain types who get nothing done don't often manage to luck their way into film careers. He jots some nonsense down on paper about errands to run and leaves it on Viggo's pillow. He gets dressed with enormous efficiency, wrinkling his nose at the sweat still on his club clothes. His car isn't in the driveway, so must still be at the club, but this is no obstacle to him and he calls himself a taxi.

He stands in Viggo's driveway waiting for it. He calls his agent on his mobile to discuss scripts, but no one but the secretary is in yet, so he leaves a message. The Los Angeles sun is annoyingly bright. His sunglasses are nowhere to be found.

Eventually he gets back to his house, car and all, feeling very productive. Slightly amazed that he didn't get into an accident along the way, it seems like no one in the entire city can drive properly. He is so ready to do something that he's almost ready to do his own laundry, except the maid service has already done it.

Sitting by the pool, he is fascinated by the blueness of the water. It's very solid. So solid, that by staring at it his ability to breathe seems impaired. He considers jumping in to test that solidity, but is too afraid to drown. He considers slitting his wrists in a very serious way, not because he wants to die, but because he literally can't think of a thing to do but see himself bleed. He still can't breathe, and so he starts to believe that if he had a hole in his skin it would be helpful.

Instead he goes back inside and does several lines of coke in succession until there's blood on his face. After that, he feels much better about life in general and almost on top of things. His whole body radiates a self-satisfied numbness.

He washes his face as productively as he's done everything else this morning, while staring at himself in the mirror. He thinks that his skin looks green and his eyes are an unhealthy shade of pink. He thinks that the muscles behind his nose are growing weak. Maybe he should go to the gym.

Orlando retains just enough self-awareness to remember that he ought not to drive at this moment. His bicycle is waiting, propped up in the garage, so he takes that instead. He has to remind himself which side of the road to be on several times. He tries to remember how he did that this morning, and can't. This is worrisome.

When he gets there the woman behind the counter smiles knowingly at him, and lets him in despite the fact he's forgotten his membership card.

"I liked your movie," she tells him. "You look good as a blond."

He can't understand what she means by that for a breath, but then he realizes he's been recognized. It's mildly disturbing. "Thanks," he says.

"You look better with the mohawk, though. I always did have a thing for punk rock boys." She licks her lips causally. Her teeth are very American. White, shiny, large, expensive looking. Her nose is the oddity, like something broken and improperly set. The imperfection seems a very strange quality in a gym receptionist.

"How come you haven't got a nose job?" he asks.

She blinks, as if no one has ever asked such a question before. He wonders why he did. "I don't want one," she says.

"Oh. Alright. I wouldn't either."

"Do you need any help?" she asks him, a meditative expression on her face.

"Mmmh? No, no I'm fine." He stands there, still staring at her. Her nose is the most beautiful thing he's seen in this entire city. He tells her so.

She laughs out loud. "You're high, aren't you?"

This, he decides, is an incredibly unfair thing for her to assume. "Not me. I'm a very good role model, you know."

"You're so fucking high I could take you into my office and rape your ass and you wouldn't even remember to complain in the morning."

He thinks about it for a moment. "That sound fine. Would you do that?"

She pauses, her tongue wetting her lips. Then she shakes her head regretfully. "I must be crazy, but no. If you do manage to remember me, come back when you're sober."

It takes him a minute to get over his disappointment. After that, he forgets why it is he was in the gym to begin with and turns around to leave.

"Wait," the receptionist calls after him. "Are you sure you should be running around by yourself? I can call someone to come get you."

He doesn't bother to dignify this with a response, just keeps on walking. He leaves his bicycle in the rack by the sidewalk; it will be at least two days before he thinks of it again.

 

So, if you catch one, how do you pass the test of time, again?

He finds his mobile is still in his pocket. He decides to call up Sarah next, hoping she isn't upset he hadn't looked for her the other night. Sarah never seems to get upset about anything he does, but he can't believe there won't be a breaking point to that somewhere. There has to be; though if standing her up at the premier didn't do it, ditching her at a club certainly doesn't seem sufficient.

It's not that he's not grateful for her very existence. It wasn't every day he met a dealer who liked him enough to pass him freebies on the strength of his looks. And there's something comforting about the constant waves of affection she seems to send off. She doesn't like him because of anything he's said or done and nothing he could say or do seems to be capable of shaking her liking. Sarah, as far as he can tell, likes him for two reasons, that he was born handsome, and that he crossed her path on a rainy New Zealand day when they were both bored and horny.

"Hello, Sarah? It's Orlando," he says tentatively, still half expecting some sign of anger.

"Hey!" She sounds as happy to hear his voice as always. "How are you doing?"

"Fine, really."

"Yeah? You don't sound so good. Was everything okay with the stuff I gave you?"

"It was great. Really lovely." He thought about the melting delight on Viggo's face when he sucked his cock amongst the coats of some of the brightest stars in Los Angeles. She'd probably like to hear about it, but he can't imagine telling her. The very idea of thinking of her and Viggo at the same time is suddenly bothersome. It makes him dizzy.

"Oh that's great! I really liked that batch myself." She sounds like a girl who'd made cookies for her boyfriend.

He smiles to himself; suddenly he likes her back, overwhelmingly. Wants to make up for ditching her. "I'm glad. Listen, Sarah, do you want to get away for the weekend? You, me, the desert, whatever kind of drugs you like?"

She laughs, a little shrill. He regrets his impulse to ask as quickly as he'd found it. "I like all the kinds of drugs, honey."   
"So you'll do it then? You'll come with me?" He wonders why he's asking when all he really hopes is that she'll say no. Punishing himself has never been his style.

"I can't. I'm sorry. Business. But if you want to see me, we can still... why don't we just get together Friday night and go dancing? I've got way too much E to get rid of anyway," Sarah offers.

"Sounds good." He smiles, relieved that she is so easily placated. Relieved that she does not seem to feel he owes her anything.  
This is why he can't understand why everything feels so horrifyingly empty when she hangs up the phone and he is left to himself amongst a mass of strangers.

He feels sick and out of control, sitting on a barstool next to a pallid neon sign that promises Guinness though only a watery substitute is available and a speaker that blares some women's desperately angry voice. The only words he could pick out were that she had to get out of Los Angeles. He sympathizes with her. Wants desperately to go home, but can't decide where that is.   
The bartender smiles gently at him, his long blond ponytail bobbing as he cleans someone's spilled drink. "Are you okay, man?" he asks. He wonders why everyone keeps asking him that.

"I'm fine," he says shortly. He finishes his beer and then has another. The bartender rolls his eyes and doesn't try to talk to him anymore. He feels worse than sick, worse than useless. He feels like no one could possibly want to love him.

He goes outside into that sickening sun and calls the first number that comes to mind, but Atti isn't home. He isn't even picking up his mobile. He leaves a message that is too far on the wrong side of self-pity. Five minutes later he can't even remember the exact words he said and wishes there were some way he could call back and erase it.

Back inside the bar he orders a gin and asks the bartender about that song.

"Which song?"

"The song with the man and the woman yelling together. About getting out of Los Angeles."

"Dude, that isn't meant to be a racist song. We aren't like that. It's like a sarcastic indictment of other people who wanted to leave because they couldn't deal with their fellow man and shit. I mean X weren't ever a skinhead band, man, and anyone who knows John or Exene knows that. We don't have that kind of vibe in this place at all. We're all about the harmony, you know."

"I'm sorry." He tries to take in what the man saying but he can't follow it through the disjointedness. "I really couldn't understand the words at all. Just that she wanted to get out of Los Angeles."

"Okay," the man calms down and smiles, much nicer now. "Yeah, I suppose those are the words that stand out. Maybe it was a love-hate relationship. She never did though."

"Who did what?"

"Exene. The woman who sings the song. She never got out of Los Angeles. Still lives here. I used to know her a little a long time ago. She was a wild little thing in those days, she and John used to run up and down the streets out of their mind and screaming. What you'd expect from a motherless girl." The man frowns slightly, caught in the memory. His expression sours. "Then she married that hippie, the one who wanted to save her."

Orlando watches the man's face, fascinated at the mood's playing there. "And did he? Did somebody save her?"

"Who knows? She ain't dead, is she? That's something." He shrugs and seems to lose interest "Hey, you're a Brit. I'll put on something for you, dude. Some Clash or something."

"All right. Thanks."

Orlando wonders why the name Exene is familiar. He is also unaccountably depressed by the fact she never did get out. Married a hippie. He wonders if she still wants to escape.

When he begins to get tired he goes to the gents and swallows a tablet of meth with lukewarm water out of the tap. It catches in his throat, making him choke and he spits it back up. Stares at it, at its suddenly disturbing squishy softness.

This is a sign, a sign that something must be done. For the life of him, he can't remember what he used to do when he was tired before.

He flushes what's left of the pill down the toilet, along with all the cocaine in his pocket. He sits down on the filthy floor of the bar toilet and shakes. Some of the meth has gotten into his system after all. He remembers that he hadn't meant to take any of the particular batch, since cheap speed makes his head ache.

Too late now. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. The rush comes. He hasn't been able to breathe properly in days and this isn't helping.  
Orlando Bloom is no longer having fun.

His mobile rings at about this time, but can't make himself be bother to pick it up so he lets it go until it stops. The blood in his temples throbs brutally. He goes outside and sits on a bench, letting the stench of concrete and gasoline rot his brain.   
It doesn't ring again until much later.

This time he picks it up.

"Orlando? Are you there?" It's Viggo, who sounds upset for some reason.

"Yeah. Right here."

"Are you okay?"

"Why does everyone keep asking me that?"

"I can't tell you why other people are asking, but I can guess. I am because you haven't been picking up your phone for the last three hours."

"But it was just the once," he protests. "I only let it ring the once."

"What are you talking about?" Viggo actually seems to be angry. Orlando is impressed with this. "I've been trying to reach you for hours, ever since some panicked German kid called to tell me you'd left an insane message on his machine. Where the fuck are you?"

"What? Who called you?"

"Your friend Atti. He couldn't get you to answer the phone either. The poor kid was trying to call someone who might know where you were."

"Atti? Why would he call you?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe because you left him a nice long answering machine message about how he could have your flat because you wouldn't be having much need for it once you'd gotten all the blood to pour out of your head?" The last is said in a nasty imitation of Orlando's accent.

"I did nothing like that," Orlando protests heatedly.

"He has the tape. He played it for me."

"He has a tape?" He honestly can't remember what he'd said to Atti. It makes his skin crawl, thinking of how upset Atti must be, if it's true. He feels like the world's biggest bastard.

"Yes, he does. Believe me, you don't want to know what you sound like on it. Now tell me where you are."

"I don't know. In front of a bar. Could you come and get me?"

The meth pounding around inside his brain goes Bzzt a few more times for good measure. He tells Viggo the name of the bar and the name of the street and then settles down to wait to be picked up. No one looks at him, they just pass the bench by.  
He's starting to believe he's become invisible, that he's so far divorced from reality, reality can't be bothered to see him any more.

Then Viggo's car pulls up and the door opens. Viggo wouldn't open the door for someone who wasn't there. He wouldn't yell either, when Orlando gets into the car.

"Orlando, for Christ's sake! What is it exactly that you think you're doing?" is how the lecturing process begins. He wonders if Viggo is trying to save him. He wants to get out of Los Angeles. He doesn't know if anyone at all can make him feel better. Maybe being home in London would be a start.

 

The next day, he will meet Viggo for lunch in some little café in Venice. He will be tired, but there will be just enough cocaine left in his system to have kept him from getting more than a few hours of sleep. He will be unable to purge it. He will wear his darkest sunglasses to hide the fact that every vein in his eyes has exploded.

Viggo will order a hamburger and Orlando will find the stink of it slightly repulsive. It's been a while since he's been this close to meat. He will say nothing about it out loud, just try not to look nauseated. Viggo will not notice his disgust, perhaps because of the glasses.

"So did you get anything done yesterday before your nervous breakdown?" Viggo will ask him.

"What?" Then he will remember the note he'd left on a pillow what seems an eternity ago. "Yes. It was a very productive day."

"I'm glad. Are you feeling any better?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm fine." He will be mildly surprised to notice this is almost true. He has come to a decision on how to go on with things now. And if he isn't quite there yet, he can at least see fine from where he's sitting.

And this is the moment that Viggo will look at him, dreamy and considering, like he looks at a blank canvas when he plans how the project will proceed. And he will knock Orlando's plans to hell with a few ill chosen words, out of the blue.

The words are, "Do you love me, Orlando?"

"Mmh?"

"Because, I could love you, I think. If you wanted," Viggo's voice can be soft and wanting. His want spilling over and coloring everything.

"Oh. I. Oh."

"Orlando?"

Orlando will look down at his napkin and think about love. Think about his mother's tired smile. About the girl who'd slid out of his grasp somewhere along the line in New Zealand. About Atti's head resting in his lap, too tense and worn out from days of working to do anything but shake. He will think hard, because Viggo's longing is infectious and he wants desperately to fit him in there somewhere. Somewhere among the people he's loved.

He will think this- that Viggo is the deep, searching kisses, the terrible wanting, wanting something so deep his stomach ached for it. Viggo is something large and strong and completely unlike himself to bury himself in.

"I'm sorry," Orlando will say at last and raise his head to look into Viggo's hurting, wanting eyes. "I truly am." He is too tired and wasted to lie, but he cannot be cruel enough to admit he'd as soon say he loved heroin.

***

It was like getting a glass of water flung in his face when he'd just stepped out of a sauna. He felt like an idiot, a nasty middle-aged creep of the worst kind. But there was nothing he could do about it now, and he would never use it to excuse what happened later.

"Half the shit he pulls these days is just to get your attention," Elijah had told him solemnly not two days ago. And Viggo had started to think that maybe this could be something more real than a flirtation with lost youth. That Orlando might want more than a lay. That he himself might learn to see more than the echoes of a lost love.

"I'm sorry," Orlando said to his offer of love, and the sunlight had reflected off his dark glasses revealing nothing. And if what he'd wanted was Viggo's attention maybe that was all he'd ever wanted. And of course there was very little for Viggo to say after that. What he could do was fall back on something he was good at, be a friend. Maybe help Orlando solve his problems.

"It's okay," he told Orlando. "We had some fun, didn't we?"

"What's this did, old man, we're bound to have some more fun yet," Orlando said. His voice was slightly slurred with exhaustion. Behind his sunglasses Orlando was so far beyond tired he couldn't begin to sleep, that much was obvious to Viggo. He felt a wave of compassion. Whatever he'd been putting himself through Orlando had obviously taken things far over the line of youthful exuberance. "I mean it's not over, it doesn't have to be over..."

"It's not over if you don't want it to be, but you need at least week in bed before you're up for any fun," he said.

"Yes." Orlando gave a rusty little laugh. "I suppose you're right."

"I'll take you home if you want. Actually, I can do a little better than that," he offered impulsively. "I have a place up in the hills. Kind of a secret. I- my ex-wife used to use it when she had to... deal with problem without the whole world knowing about it."

"You think I need to... deal with problems. Are you accusing me of something?"

Viggo backpedaled quickly, "Look, I'm just saying if you wanted to deal with things now-" He stopped when he realized Orlando was laughing at him a little.

"I'm sorry," Orlando said. "It's very kind of you to offer. But it's just... listening to you trying to find a pretty euphemism for drug abuse now. You sound like you're the host on some horrible morning chat show."

He made a sound of frustration. "Orlando, for fuck's sake, will you stop trying to come up with clever comebacks and tell me if you need my help or not?"

Orlando sighed and lifted up his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. His eyes looked terrible, like something in the worst stages of an infection. "All right. I am- I keep having to say this to you, I must be acting like such a bastard, but I am sorry, Viggo, this is none of it your fault. It's- you're being very kind, but I can probably deal with this on my own."

"You're sure?" Viggo smiled a little bitterly. It was entirely possible Orlando would go home and sleep. It was just as likely he'd collapse for a few days and then start drugging himself all over again.

"I am sure. I just really need to sleep. Just crawl in bed for a week or three, you know what I mean?"

"That sounds like a good idea."

"It is," And then, "Oh shit!" Orlando said explosively. "It's Friday isn't it?"

"Yeah. What is it?"

"I'd forgotten. I promised Sarah dancing tonight. I should call her," he said reluctantly. "Tell her I can't do it." Viggo frowned at the mention of the girl's name.

"But?" Viggo prompted, knowing there was something behind the reluctance. Whatever drug problems Orlando had, he believed the girl was no help.

"I don't know- I'm just, I keep backing out on her. She's a really nice girl."

"Oh, I get it. She's the nice drug dealer," he quoted.

"Don't be such a cunt. She is nice, just, you know, a little confused. She likes me."

"She'd have to be confused. Do you love her?"

Orlando blinked and then shook his head. "Don't be stupid. Jealousy doesn't suit you. She's just a girl who was nice to me. Maybe I could help her."

"You can't help someone like that. Believe me, I know," he tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "If you're luckier than you deserve you might not get pulled down with her, but you can't help her. She's already as good as dead." He wouldn't even answer the charge of jealousy, and not only because he didn't think Orlando made it with any real seriousness. Orlando in all his causal bisexuality liked to act as if he had never come across jealousy in his personal life. Disabusing him of the notion was a good way to make him run.

"That's fairly harsh. She's not dead."

"Damaged goods, Orlando, and you know it. Just because you feel guilty for using her for drugs doesn't mean you should keep hanging around with her. Unless what you want is more drugs."

"I don't, okay? I don't know what I want. I can't think properly at all right now."

"Look, I'll do it for you, if you want," Viggo offered on impulse. If Orlando could get the clean break from that girl that he needed it would make everything easier. "I'll go meet her and tell her you couldn't come," he promised. "I'll even take your girlfriend dancing for you if she still wants to go."

"She's not my- oh; you're having a laugh at my expense aren't you? But you would do that for me? In all seriousness?"

"Yeah. Don't ask me why." He could lie well enough, but he'd rather not. There was no way he was going to tell Orlando that the purpose of the exercise was to make sure the girl didn't come near the boy any more. Even after whatever he and Orlando had was over. Especially then.

"Alright," Orlando said very seriously. "I won't ask. I shall trust you."

**

The sight of the girl was distasteful to him, he could admit that now that he'd made up his mind to do something. Her pretty almond eyes and stick skinny arms, the bone structure that gave an uncanny and faintly repulsive resemblance to Orlando. He might have hated her for dragging Orlando down with her, but the faint echoes of pity kept it from coming to that. She was a walking corpse, she just didn't know she'd died yet.

She was a fucking poison flower, killing everything that she touched. She was smiling at him in a quiet pleasant way, speaking with the faintest echo of Kentucky in her voice. "It's really nice of you to come with me," she said, looking at him like they were friends. "I thought it would be a lonely night, what with Orlando feeling so off and all."

She was close enough for him to feel the faint, but constant tremors from her muscles. Cocaine probably. Speed almost certainly. She was jittery with uppers and paranoid with it. If it hadn't been for that, nothing could have gotten as far as it did. She was paranoid. He told himself that later. The lights reflected off the bruised in the crooks of her arms, turning them into black holes.

They were on the dance floor and she leaned against him, pressing the angles of her body too close. And he leaned down and whispered to her, "Do you love him, Sarah?"

And she blushed and looked away, as if she were a different girl from the one who'd casually offered herself to Viggo on the off chance it would get her closer to Orlando. "I do. I want him to be happy. He's so beautiful, he deserves to be happy." A nice girl. Nice drug dealer.

He looked straight down deep into her brown almond shaped eyes and he started to lie to her, "He doesn't want to see you anymore."

"What?" She stopped short on the floor, wrapped her slender arms around her shoulders. He guided her off the floor with a false solicitousness she didn't have the coherence to recognize as poison.

He could have told her any kind of half-truths. He could have told her Orlando didn't care for her because he was seeing someone else, or that he was quitting drugs and that she was a bad influence. But all of those half-lies wouldn't stop her from confronting Orlando when he woke up and it would all start again. So he told her a lie she'd never question. She was after all, a Hollywood beauty. "He thinks you're fucking up his career. In all seriousness, you've been seen all over town with him and he's a rising star. The press will have a field day when they hit your background."

"My background?" she asked, her hands pressed to her mouth. Disbelief. She thought he couldn't know about her.

He didn't know for sure, but he used what he knew about her kind as much as what he knew about her as a person. He knew where it would hurt. "Your background. You don't believe that people won't find out about the drugs Sarah, not even if you could stop using them? Can you stop using them?"

And he said, "The police have records, Sarah. Records of people they arrest for solicitation. Have you spent much time on Hollywood Boulevard or do you only do out-calls? Are you telling me you haven't been caught?"

And he said, "Do you seriously believe he can't get whatever he wants from the studios without any messy attachments? Whatever he wants?"

He said more, the worst he could think of. He watched her face, and he took pleasure in the deadening blankness that spread there. That expression he swore he would never see on Orlando's face while he had any influence. "He told you to tell me these things?" she asked at last. He saw it again, the faint echoes of disbelief.

"He's a nice guy, our Orlando. A gentleman. He doesn't want to have to hurt you himself." He patted her gently on the shoulder. "After all, you made him very happy. I'm sure you have a lot of experience doing that kind of thing for men."

"Why are you saying these things to me?" she cried. "What did I ever do to  
you?"

"Sarah, Sarah, relax, baby. It isn't me. I'm just telling you for Orlando. Wouldn't you rather know how he really feels about you?"

She didn't have enough money on her for a cab home, so he drove her himself. She shook like a leaf about to hit the ground in the backseat of his car. He didn't say a word, just raised an eyebrow when she pulled a syringe and a spoon out of her purse.

"I need a hit," she said softly. "Is that okay?"

He didn't say anything, just nodded and let her cook up. It was too much. He didn't know, he would never know if she realized it was too much. If she knew what she was doing, or was just too upset to pay the attention to it that she should have. He decided she had the experience and should know how much she could handle. He decided that and said nothing, but he'd seen what hardcore junkies her size took, and what she'd measured out was too much. Sarah's head lolled back against the seat, her brown eyes closed and didn't open again.

He called 911 when her skin began to turn blue. He did do that. He tried CPR, or what he could remember of it. She died in the earliest part of a balmy Los Angeles Saturday. Orlando slept through it. Slept for forty-eight hours without waking up.

He'd hated her after all. He could admit that when she was dead.

**

He broke the news gently, over the phone, before Orlando had a chance to hear it from someone else's mouth and get the wrong idea. Said it was an overdose, that he'd been there, that he done his best. Lied through his teeth. Orlando sobbed once, in a kind of hoarse confusion, if he wept after that Viggo was glad he did it quietly.

"But, I don't understand? How'd it happen?" he said.

"It was an accident. She was a junkie. These things happen," he said.

"I'm sorry, I know you liked her," he said.

"You were there?" Orlando asked softly.

"Yes. She wasn't alone and she didn't suffer. It's not a bad way too die, overdosing like that. You just sleep."

"I'm sorry you had to be there for that," Orlando whispered. "It must have been an awful thing to see."

"It wasn't the first time. I mean, it doesn't get easier, but I've been around junkies before. These things happen to them," he repeated tonelessly.

"You where there," Orlando said, as if caught in some kind of loop. "You've seen this happen before?"

"Yes. I am so sorry," he said. Prayed Orlando would believe it without further discussion. Would decide he was too upset to talk about it. He didn't think it would be a good idea for them to be having any long conversations on the topic

**

 

They met up the next day, for lunch at Orlando's house. Orlando watched him as he ate, eyes focusing a little too hard, an oddly blank expression on his face. Viggo wondered what he knew. If he'd called the hospital. What they would have told him. He decided it was nothing, no one could know what had really happened anymore but him.

He knew for sure that Orlando didn't know anything at all, couldn't know when at the end of the meal Orlando stepped right up to Viggo and kissed him. He would never have done that something like that if he knew. Orlando's dark eyes were as shiny as a mirror, reflecting Viggo's face back at him in the instant before their mouths met. It made him shiver.

He closed his eyes and gave himself up to whatever Orlando wanted. It was the right thing to do.

The kiss started out sweetly enough, Orlando's clever tongue twisting his lower lip and then pulling it in to his mouth. It made the shock of teeth sinking in to that captured lip all the more pronounced. Viggo yelped and pulled back. He could instantly taste the blood seeping from the wound.

"Oh, did that hurt?" Orlando asked casually. "Shall I kiss it better?"

"Did you have any reason for that?" he gasped.

Orlando smiled nastily and stalked toward him with easy grace. "Did it hurt? Will you weep, Viggo? Will you cry like a little girly?" Those brown eyes held a half-curious cruelty that made something inside him shudder. All the blood rushed to his groin quickly enough to make him dizzy and he stood still as a trapped animal with a hunter circling nearby.

Almost physically trapped, when a slender hand closed roughly around his wrist and he groaned and allowed his mouth to be recaptured. Orlando's tongue was wilder this time, seeking out the blood he'd spilled and tasting it, drinking it down.

"You're a slut for this, aren't you? You should have said. I could have given it to you earlier."

Viggo could only moan helplessly as demonic, disgusting things were whispered in his ear. Orlando licked delicately along his ear, before biting on the lobe, just hard enough to earn another scream. He kissed that spot he'd bitten, ever so softly, before going on. The lip was just sensitive enough to mistake the lightest touch for pain.

"You're not crying," Orlando said. "I'll start to think you don't appreciate me."

"Orlando, please," his voice was hoarse, almost unrecognizable to himself.

"Please. I like the sound of that." A knee pressed itself between his legs and Orlando laughed at his painful hardness. "I see the key parts of you appreciate me well enough. Please what, Viggo?"

"I-" The words caught in his throat as Orlando bit and kissed his way across his neck, brutal and gentle by turns.

"Do you have any idea how I feel right now? You're panting for it, but you've no idea what I'm thinking about." Hands stroked his hair, with a strange mock kindness. "Shall I kiss you? Shall I kiss you here?" The hand slid roughly into his pants, grabbing on to him for a moment that was too brief. "Or maybe here?" Two hands gripped his ass tightly. "Would you like my tongue up your arse?"

"Please," he gasped, the only word coming to mind. He was losing his mind.

"What? Would you like me to please suck your cock? Would you like me to please fuck you? I'll do it. I'll do it better than you've ever had it, you old slag."

"Anything, Orlando, anything, but please."

"I will," he whispered. "All you need to do is answer me one question. You've experience, it should be easy. Can you do that?" Hot, brutal mouth on the soft skin of his throat, ungentle teeth brushing by. "Will you do that?"

"Anything," he told his demon, meaning it as much as he'd meant anything he'd ever said in his life.

Orlando stood back, letting Viggo see the strange detached expression on his beautiful face. He'd driven Viggo to distraction without getting a hair out of place. And what he said was, "How much did she take, Viggo?"

"What? Orlando-"

"Shut up, Viggo. I want to know how much of the smack Sarah took."

"I don't know. I don't know what you mean." Like being thrown into a freezer. Arousal fled, but not nearly fast enough as he tried to gather his scattered wits in the face of the sudden interrogation.

"You told me you were with her when she took it. You told me that. You saw it measured out. Didn't you?" Cold voice. Cold. He knew, somehow he'd figured it out. Viggo wondered what he would do with the knowledge.

"Yes." He shook his head helplessly. "I saw how much she took."

Orlando nodded tightly. "Fine. Come with me." He strode into the bedroom with long, purposeful steps and Viggo trailed behind, confused and more than a little wary, his mouth bruised and hurting from the assault.

Orlando tugged open the bottom drawer, pushed aside a top layer of sweater and pulled out a bag. He turned his accusing stare back onto Viggo waiting until the man flinched, before opening the bag. It was full of a fine white powder. "Show me. Show me how much she took."

With trembling hands Viggo measured out the hit he'd seen the girl take. The sheer amount of it seemed to be magnified under Orlando's pitiless gaze. Viggo knew what he was thinking, how could he have? How could he have sat there and let her do it.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, almost feeling it.

"She can't forgive you. She's dead. And she took it herself. That's what the papers will say. She measured out her own dose, cooked it up, injected it, and died before an ambulance could get there. You didn't do it, did you? Hell you even called the ambulance."

"I did," he whispered.

"Yes, you did. You knew it was a fatal hit. I know you, and you know junkies. Admit you knew it was a fatal hit and let her do it. Admit it," he was all but screaming now, but despite the volume of his voice, his tone hadn't changed. A level, dead sounding tone.

"I should have stopped her."

"Should have, could have, would have. You aren't capable of it. I'm the one that's sorry, Viggo."

"Why? You didn't do anything wrong, Orlando."

"Because I was wrong about you. I thought you could look after a person, but you can't. I expected too much and it was unfair to you. Forgive me." He sat down and looked Viggo directly in the eyes. "Do you forgive me, Viggo?"

Viggo shook his head helplessly.

"That's okay. You needn't. All I need you do is just what you did for Sarah. Nothing more." He pulled a set of works out of the night table and carefully began to prepare the drug for injection.

"Orlando-" he gasped.

Orlando shrugged. "Hush. You won't stop me. You aren't capable of it. I'll probably live long enough for an ambulance anyway. I've more body mass than her." He tightened a rubber tourniquet around his left arm and smiled softly to himself.

Viggo saw it then, how perfectly he'd been played. "Don't do this. Punish me if you have to, but this is ridiculous!" he cried.

"Viggo, not everything is about you. This," he gestured to the gear, "is all about me."

"What are you talking about?"

Orlando's detachment fractured and he finally caught sight of the howling anguish underneath it. It shocked him more than anything else to that moment had, shook him to his bones. "I sent her with you. A girl died because of me. A girl who liked me for no reason at all died."

"You don't need to take this on. It's too much for you, Orlando," Viggo whispered. The truth they both already knew. He gestured to the drug. "It was too much for her and she was experienced."

"Too much is right. It's just exactly right. It's justice."

"It's not your fault." But Orlando really believed it was in some twisted way.

The acrid burning smell of heroin caught in his throat, bringing with it the same desire it always had. But it would never be the same again. He'd never smell it again without seeing the ruined, focused horror in Orlando's face as he shot up for the first time in honor of a dead girl who'd never even had a chance. The pureness of the hate in that single act, for Viggo, for himself, radiated off him in almost tangible waves.

He watched that face as the needle slid into vein and the determination and the pain and the horror shattered against a monolithic wave of manufactured bliss.

"It doesn't hurt," Orlando whispered, taking him back to the beginning, to their first time together. "It's alright, nothing hurts at all."

The seconds ticked by, and Orlando looked at him with a pleasure-softened gaze. Some real emotion lingered there for a brief moment. "Didn't wanna die," he said slowly. "Didn't think you were going to let me do it. I really... thought you were going to make me stop. Isn't that funny?" He laughed out loud and Viggo watched the last spark go out under another wave of pain annihilating pleasure.

He felt it then. Whatever he hadn't been feeling before, hadn't allowed himself to feel. This was his fault. He was responsible. He felt it all, like a man trapped in amber, wading across millennia, too paralyzed by the horror of what he'd stood by and allowed to happen until Orlando's eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed against the floor with a dull resounding thud.

If the paramedics hadn't come in time, he didn't know what would have happened. Two dead children in one week and he didn't know what would have happened to him at all.

It was only when they got Orlando to open his eyes and breathe, when they said that he was going to be okay, that he knew that somewhere, somehow there was going to be an end to this.

**

 

Everything in his world was reduced to bright lights and nightmares.

Orlando had nightmares since the day he'd fallen off a roof and almost paralyzed himself – he hated talking about it, he even hated thinking about it, but it had been true for years. Nothing bizarre, nothing unexpected. Choking, suffocating, smothering things about the sound his back made when it broke, the doctor's voice telling him he'd probably never be able to walk again.   
The cocaine and the speed kept him from sleeping, but when he they finally let go the dreams were worse, and he was too paralyzed and strung out to scream.

It made it almost impossible to surrender to sleep once he'd started using, so there was always the need for more and more. But this time, he wanted to sleep because he'd made up his mind that there would be no more. He'd reached a limit. Of course, this was the time he woke up and the nightmare wasn't over.

He heard, "She's dead. It was an overdose." That it was an accident. That Viggo had been with her when she died, so she wasn't alone.

Viggo had been with her when she died. Out of all the shock, he felt this was the one thing his mind couldn't let go of, the thing that didn't make any sense. And he hated himself for it, he hated his own useless, suspicious paranoid mind, but it was all he could think about.

He didn't have a plan for when he met Viggo. Nothing specific. He just had the idea that if he could get him off balance enough he'd find out the truth, and that it would not be, could not be what he was thinking.

Orlando hadn't counted on angry he would be. How placid Viggo would be, how prepared to let a death slide away without any further discussion.

All he wanted was for it to not be true. He thought he could prove it to himself that it wasn't true, that Viggo wouldn't just sit by and watch, watch that happen. Because Orlando had never considered himself that bad a judge of character, and he didn't believe it until the needle slid into vein and after that it was much too hard to care. The shiny, sordid world slid out of his grip and he couldn't cling.

He woke up to hospital lights strong enough to make him flinch and Viggo's haggard stare. His throat felt too dry and ruined to say a word so he just looked away.

"I'm sorry, Orlando," Viggo said quietly. "I know it doesn't mean much, but I am sorry."

"I'm sorry," he croaked out. "You're sorry. Everyone is sorry. Fucking brilliant." He thought about demanding an explanation, demanding a why. Why? Why? Why? Did he even want to know, really? Would it save him, would it make it okay? Or worse.

"You know... that shit you've been taking, it makes you paranoid, Orlando. Don't forget about that."

Orlando snapped his head up and stared into Viggo's eyes. "Was that it, then? I'm just a paranoid coke-head? If that's true, tell me I was wrong," his voice was bitter, but somewhere he was almost ready to hear that.

Viggo sighed and looked away. "I didn't make anything happen. The girl was-"

"Her name was Sarah."

"Fine," Viggo said with a sickening patience, "Sarah was a junkie. I've told you this before. Fuck, you knew it without me saying a word. What did you expect, a long life with her? A house in the desert with imported palm tree?"

"No," he hissed. "I didn't expect anything. I've never expected- but, maybe I should have. I should have tried."

And then there was a cleared throat and a nurse in blur scrubs came stopping him before he said something too true to ever take back and said, "Awake, are we? You're a lucky man, Mr. Bloom."

And he was, he even knew that he was, but he wasn't feeling that yet.

 

The problem was that it made the papers. Orlando had forgotten, he really had, that it wasn't just him anymore. That he was knocking on the door of fame and fortune and that there were plenty of people who'd like the smell of his blood.

-Lord of the Rings Star Nightmare Overdose-

Not exactly the tabloid legacy he'd been meaning to leave. His agent called to yell at him. Elijah and Dom called to sound worried and more than a little pissed off at him for being stupid.

Elijah mostly did the worried, demanding to know if he needed anything, if he was okay, if he wanted to go into a treatment program. No, not really, not yet. Elijah sighed and gave him to Dom.

Dom said, "Where the fuck are you in your head, mate? D'you think playing at junkie is funny? Cause your friends aren't laughing, I'll tell you that much."

He told them nothing about what had really happened, he couldn't do that to him. They'd done nothing to deserve feeling like he did.

Viggo sat by his bedside and Orlando stared at him bitterly and wished he'd go away, but didn't ask because he didn't want to sit in this room alone. He wasn't fit to be in the company of anyone he cared about.

On his last day in the hospital Viggo brought him the papers with his picture plastered all over them, dropped them on his lap an hour before he was to be discharged, as if to mock him somehow.

"They're waiting for you in the lobby," he said. "They're probably on your front lawn too."

"Not much I can do about it now, is there?" he muttered, disgusted with himself. His head felt as if a colony of ants were burrowing their way into the brainstem. It was too hard to think.

"You could still stay at my place in the hills if you want."

When Viggo made the offer he blinked. "You can't be serious. I know you said I could use your place before, but for fuck's sake, Viggo."

"I'm deadly serious. It's your if you want it. I won't bother you while you're there."

"Like I'm fit to look after myself. But then you're pretty shite at looking after me as well, aren't you?"

Viggo looked at him with those deep, serious eyes that had made Orlando feel safe and wanted a few days ago. Now they made him feel sick. "I was trying. Strangely enough. Orlando, I wanted to do what was best for you."

Orlando flinched and covered his ears. "Don't," he found himself begging. "If you ever cared even a little for me, don't say what I think you're trying to say. Not even if it's so." He turned away from Viggo's face before it made him vomit.

"Orlando, please, be reasonable," Viggo said.

Reasonable. He didn't know what to do. Cameras flashing in his face, asking questions, and what if they'd found out about Sarah? "The papers don't know where it is?"

"No." Something quiet and nervous sounding in Viggo's voice. It made him feel better, at least he wasn't sure of Orlando.

"Fine. Alright."

"You won't be sorry."

"Of course I'm sorry. But it's not like I've anywhere else to go do I?" That wasn't really true, but it might as well have been. There was no one else who deserved to be burdened with him in the state he was in.

When he got out of the hospital Orlando began to systematically throw the drugs away. It was as if everything he had left in him was dedicated to this one overwhelming task of hunting down stashes of pills and powder, pipes and needles. The only thing he kept was a large bag of grass that had in fact once belonged to Viggo. Viggo didn't ask for it back.

He'd let Viggo remove him from his own house, with all its possibilities of press scrutiny, to that little cottage in the hills where Exene had once screamed her way through withdrawal. It wasn't going to be as bad as that this time. Not nearly.

Orlando just went to bed and refused to get up. He refused to explain himself, even when asked point blank. He just lay there, curled up on the foot of the bed for days, hardly moving unless he needed to use the toilet. He stunk of the sweat of withdrawal and of the hash cigarettes he rolled for himself whenever he managed to raise the will power. Viggo merely looked on helplessly and brought him food.

The tension and depression radiating from him grew steadily over the days. He didn't answer the phone and refused to talk to anyone.

After about two weeks of this Exene came over with cake in a cardboard box. Viggo didn't ask how she'd found out where they holed up here or why on earth she'd decided that what they really needed was at that moment was pound cake. Or why she'd come at all, for that matter. She was, as far as he knew, the only one who was even aware of where this house was. He just shrugged and let her in.

"This is for you and your boy," she said, handing him the box.

"Thank you."

"No problem. I'll just go and pay my respects." And she pushed passed him to do just that, as if the smell of hash and unwashed male was her beacon. She walked into the bedroom and wrinkled her nose.

"This place smells like one of my old squats. And you," she gestured to Orlando, "You looked much prettier on glossy magazine spreads, little boy."

"Yeah, well I felt prettier then to," Orlando said. He flinched and shielded his eyes as she drew the curtains open and tugged the window open. "Who the fuck are you anyway?"

"You don't know me. You're playing with something that used to belong to me." She gestured to Viggo. Orlando just started at her blankly. "I'm his ex-wife," she said after a moment.

Orlando looked from her to Viggo and narrowed his eyes. "Well take him back then. He's yours." Viggo tried not to flinch from the emotionless tone of his lover's voice.

Exene pressed her hand to her forehead. "I said used to. Believe me if I wanted him back I've had my chances."

"So what the fuck do you want from me?"

"From you? Nothing much. I just wanted to have a look at you."

"You've looked. Are you impressed?"

"I've seen better."

"Look, lady, you aren't a friend of mine. Do you have anything to do but insult me? I don't even know your name."

"I'm sorry, that was rude. My name is Exene Cervrenka."

Orlando sat up abruptly. "I remember who you are. You're the singer!"

"Yeah. Hey, you've heard of me?"

" I heard your song. I really liked it."

"Of course. I've actually got a message for you from someone who apparently is a friend of yours. Do you happen to want to hear from a German kid calling himself Atti? Because he says he's a friend of yours and that you haven't been answering the phone."  
Orlando sat up suddenly and then winced as unused muscle twisted. "Atti? You know him?"

"Not exactly. I'm just the only one a friend of a friend of his could find who would actually bother to track you down for him. I also brought you cake."

"Cake?" Orlando's eyes widened.

"Non-dairy. You'll like it."

"You brought me cake?" Orlando repeated slowly.

"Yup. You can have it just as soon as you call your friend."

"What if I wasn't hungry?"

"You smell like a fucking marijuana cigarette. A whole warehouse of them actually. Do you seriously expect me to believe you're not hungry?"

He grinned and then laughed out loud. It was the first careless noise he'd made in weeks. "That's true. I am hungry." Exene smiled back at him and plopped down on the edge of the bed. And just like that, they were friends.

She picked up the phone and handed it to him. He stared at it blankly for a minute. "Do you need me to dial it for you too?" She said after a long silence.

"I don't really know what to say to him. I really... I fucked up." Orlando looked down at his hands and then back up at Exene.   
She sighed and put on gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, little boy, you can't even begin to know what fucking up is... but I talked to him. He's worried. He'll understand. He's still yours," She spoke to him as if she were reading his mind.

"He is?"

"Yes." Orlando picked up the phone and his whole expression slowly changed, even though he barely spoke beyond single syllables. Turned bright and hopeful and nervous all at once. Then whoever was on the other end said something and Orlando looked up questioning at Exene and she nodded, smiled and held up a plane ticket. He grabbed at it and breathed out a "Yes. Fuck, yes," to the phone and to the woman all at once.

Viggo followed them to the front door like a lost dog, trailing several feet behind. Exene shouldered Orlando's bag when it looked like he was too shaky from inactivity to carry it. Orlando walked out the door first, not looking back.

Exene was the one that turned around. "I'll come back after I put him on the plane. You don't look like you should be left alone," she said.

He wanted to say something. Something like, 'How can you do this, just like this?', or 'He's mine damn you, you can't take him', or just 'Orlando, I love you, don't go.'. He wanted to say those things so badly he could almost taste it. He didn't even know if they were true or he just wanted them to be.

What Viggo said was, "What about the cake?"

"Keep the cake," Orlando called from the other side of the door. "Come on, Exene, if we don't go now I'll never get passed check-in before the plane leaves."

Exene sighed softly and gave Viggo a sympathetic look, but all she said was, "You heard the boy, Viggo, keep the cake. It's non-dairy. You'll like it."

She closed the door tightly behind her and neither of them said good bye.


End file.
